Ultra bad night? Chuck the clock out the window

My little travel clock that I used to have by my bed finally faded to a quiet death. It would no longer display those ungodly times containing 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s as their first digit. Since that, I’ve been searching for the perfect little bedside clock. Not too big, not those monster digital clocks with LED display that set the room alight like fireworks. I have to admit also that it’s probably not high on my list of priorities, so for the moment I am clockless.

And sometimes, that’s honestly not a bad thing. You see I’m in the habit of ‘clocking’ the time of each wakeup as I get out of bed and again as I get into bed. So most times I will therefore know:

– what times the Imp woke up

– how long each waking was

– and perhaps how many times he woke up (if I can still count them on my fingers)

Under the clockless system you stumble out of bed wondering was it half an hour ago when he was awake, or 4 hours ago. Sometimes you don’t have a clue. Often in the morning it’s a bit of a blur. What time did he wake up? How long was he in bed with us? Was he awake for long? I found myself in this state the other day not really knowing what kind of night we’d had. So I analysed how I felt … hmm, strangely not too bad. After a coffee, half decent even. So conclusion – the night was not that bad.

Had I been under the clock system, I may have overanalysed the number and length of wakings and concluded I should be tired, therefore I would feel tired if you see what I mean. The mind is very impressionable with these kinds of things.

So in summary, hurl your clock out the window and get a better nights sleep without it.

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9 Responses to Ultra bad night? Chuck the clock out the window

Good plan. I think Baby Boo wakes up at 5, sees ALL the light from the LED screen on the clock and thinks it’s morning. Even though I have heavy blankets hanging over the windows. I should try the clockless thing once and see. However I am addicted to the clock! Whatever will I do without it?

I know it’s really hard. I think I love clocks too. It’s worth it for a night or two just to see what happens!
In my search for a new bedside clock, I’ve seen these ones that project the time onto the wall or ceiling – now really!

Funny that you write about this, because I’ve had the quandry myself lately of whether or not to put putting the clock to avoid the “I was up x number of time for x amount of time” mood-determiner problem. Going by what you feel instead of what you know can make a lot more sense on some mornings!

and then there are those mornings you still feel horrible even though you only dealt with one waking for 10 minutes (nb. very very rare, but this was last night’s scenario and I felt like hell this morning). That, I can’t explain, other to blame it on a long term sleep debt.

thanks for this, i did the looking at the clock thing all night and I was so annoyed when we got up at half 6 coz I knew I’d been awake at 11, 1:30, 3:30 and 5:30. No clock tonight, then I’ll wake up and think “that wasn’t too bad” 🙂

Absolutely. It does work – we had to move the clock out of LB’s reach now he can climb onto the bookcase (sigh) and I’m too short-sighted to see it from the bed. So I’m not thinking ‘God, only a hour since he woke last!’

Definitely chuck the clock! I used to torture myself with timing the 5-10 wakings a night; I even wrote them down to try to see a pattern. I did this for, um, almost forever, and it made nearly me insane because there was. no. pattern.

Parenthood is challenging my controlling ways…I just had to give in to the sleep craziness and stop trying to fix it. After all, there was nothing to fix, Bean was just being Bean. Things got much better at 8.5 months when I did night wean by offering him a water bottle, which he miraculously accepted. Now at almost 13 months we are back to waking at 4am for an hour or more at a time and the water bottle is being rejected. I am just rolling with it because I now know it’s going to get better! I never would have believed it when I was brain-dead with sleep depivation, but it does get better.

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